


seven

by a_nybodys



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Childbirth, Death in Childbirth, Gen, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Lowercase, its about their moms, poetic prose, the character tags don't really apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nybodys/pseuds/a_nybodys
Summary: before they had miraculously given birth, they were normal women.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68





	seven

1.

she was a star gazer. 

on clear nights, not that there were many in bristol, she would take her telescope, gifted from her father before he passed two years prior, up to her apartment rooftop. she would lay her thick knitted blanket on the roof, wet with condensation and rain, and look into the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of something beyond her little corner of the world.

she felt so small then, staring up and out into the vast emptiness and, blinking back tears, her breath caught in her throat. her first love was the stars and, on nights when she let the tears fall, they reflected the twinkling lights above her. months later, she would fall, gasping, onto her blanket, her stomach swelling, and she would give birth alone, her little boy fighting his way out of her, surrounded by stars.

but when the nights were cold, her breath fogged up around her and she felt as if her head was amongst the clouds.

2.

she was a boxer.

she fought in underground matches, never making it to a professional league, sometimes winning and sometimes losing, but always doing what she loved. the screeching horns of the cars rolling through mexico city would be music in the background, and sweat would dot her face, her dark hair escaping her tight bun and sticking in strands around her forehead like a crown.

after the matches, in the locker rooms, she would laugh with the others, cracking joints jovially and icing bruises. she would be the last to leave the gym most nights, staying behind to help clean or to get in a few extra reps for a cooldown. it was a morning before a match, the locker room bustling with life, women rushing to every corner of the gym, when she screamed, pain bursting from her stomach as it grew, round and big, and she collapsed onto the tile of the locker room shower. she gave birth to her angry little son, screaming and crying, women around her and holding her head in their laps and letting her squeeze their hands as tight as she wanted.

but before that, she was the queen of the ring, and when the spotlights shone off her dark hair, she felt it like a halo.

3.

she was a journalist.

she traveled everywhere, from texas to norway, learning everything about everyone, listening with her tape recorder in one hand and her pad of paper in the other. she would interview anyone, from the little old russian woman carrying her groceries home to the group of kids playing basketball on a street corner in botswana. she didn’t get much money, but she liked talking to people more than any payment and, anyway, all she had to do was talk to her interviewees to convince them to pay her bus fare or buy her a plane ticket. she had such a way with words. 

she had a backpack full of spare clothes and could talk anyone into letting her sleep on their couches in exchange for a fleeting glimpse of publicity that her articles would give them. she was sleeping on a couch in portugal when it happened, and she jolted awake with loud gasps, waking the old women from their sleep in the other room. they had rushed out as she cried, and set up an impromptu hospital bed on their ratty plaid couch, holding her hands and brushing her curly hair out of her sweaty face. she had given birth nowhere near her birth home in texas, but her little girl’s cries were as sweet to her ears as sugar.

but the previous week, she had been seeing the sights and hearing the stories of lisbon, and the night air had caught in her hair and blew it around her, and she had laughed.

4.

she was poor.

she was only sixteen when her parents kicked her out after catching her with the neighbor girl, and three years later she lived in a one person apartment with four other people. it wasn't all bad, she told herself as she packed groceries for the old men of munich during her day shift, at least she had heat. at least she had a roof over her head, she told herself as she stood on the street corners at night, shivering in her thin dresses and shirts. at least she wasn’t alone, she whispered under her breath as she laid on the floor in the crowded apartment after work, shivering under a thin blanket and hearing her roommates fight in the next room over.

she never let her smile drop from her face, though, and it shone and lit up her green eyes as if they glowed. she was beautiful, and no one ever hesitated to tell her so. her grin could light up a room and her hair curled around her ears in ringlets when she bothered to brush it. she was alone in her apartment when she felt her stomach expand. she screamed, though it wasn’t a foreign sound in her dinky apartment building, and she was silent through the rest of the process. when her roommate came home at seven, he opened the door to her, dead on the floor and a baby screaming, though the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around his little neck.

but before she was poor, before she lived on the wrong side of town, she was a child with dreams as big as her eyes, and she was happy.

5.

she was a mathematician.

she couldn’t quite get her foot in the door, though. she worked as the secretary to some law firm, and in between trying to force smiles for clients of varying temperaments, she furrowed her dark and thin eyebrows and scribbled equations on a small pad of post-it notes she kept in the front zipper of her far too expensive coat from one of the many parisian boutiques her employer pushed her in the direction of when she showed up to her first day of work in a threadbare tweed jacket.

day in and day out, older divorcees would come to the desk and look down on her, small as she was even at thirty-two, and take her forced smile as a sign of submission. they would call her ‘love’ and ‘darling’ and behind her smile her eyebrow would twitch. it was a cool day, and she had been packing her purse to go home for the day when her water broke. she had looked down, confused, and had fallen to the floor after, the button on her bougie black coat popping off. her boss had called the ambulance, but by the time they arrived, she was holding her silent and sullen baby in her arms, and was glaring at the emergency personnel with her piercing grey eyes.

but the day before, she had zipped her tiny notepad into her coat pocket, and caught the train back to her flat, and though her brow was crinkled with thought, she enjoyed the whole ride home.

6.

she was a writer.

she specialized in horror, though she preferred to think of her genre more fantasy-thriller. on warm san franciscan nights she would sit in the round window seat that overlooked the street corner with the pane cracked ever so slightly, and write. she didn’t bother with a computer like other writers she mingled with on press tours, she preferred a beat-up moleskine and a sparkly gel pen. she would transfer the stained pages to her barely used computer later, but when inspiration struck it looked like a little black book and a hand stained with glitter.

she was more of a recluse than her dads expected of her growing up, but she liked it that way. she enjoyed only having to care for herself and her orange tabby cat she affectionately called goose. it was a chilly, for california, morning when it happened. she had been brewing coffee, black with an unending amount of sugar, when a sharp pain in her abdomen caused her to drop her mug, shards scattering across the floor. goose yowled plaintively and ran out the kitty door to fetch her neighbor, a little old man from bulgaria. she delivered her son on her kitchen floor, surrounded by lukewarm coffee and holding the hand of her neighbor, and her son screamed the whole time as if he was in as much pain as her.

but the night before she had sat on her window ledge, cradling her latest masterpiece between her knees and smiling down at her sleeping cat.

7.

she was a teenager.

she liked to go swimming at the local pool on sundays, she enjoyed the way sound came out muffled underwater. she was sixteen and every sunday, like clockwork, she would go to swim or, if she was honest, to see the cute boy from her classes who would come to keep his mother company at her aquatics class. she had stayed in her closet for ages, worrying her poor grandmother, trying on her two bathing suits over and over again, trying to pick the one that complemented her eyes most. she would end up walking to the moscow community center pool with her bright sunshine yellow suit hiding under her clothes, feeling like she made the wrong choice.

when he smiled at her, though, all doubts flew her mind and she smiled back, giddy with nerves. she would ask him today, she had made up her mind. sitting on the cool wooden bench, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, and quickly jumped into the pool, hoping the cool water and muffled sounds would ease her flaming cheeks. she had touched the bottom of the pool with her feet when pain erupted from her stomach, and she screamed, voice coming out in bubbles. she could see red around her, and she was terrified. she bore her child in an echoing room, her screams bouncing off the tiles, and she held the hands of the nice woman who smiled at her every sunday. her daughter came out screaming, and it was if she could feel the ground rumbling below her.

just a few minutes before, however, she had kissed the cheek of the boy she was sure she loved, and he had smiled after her, and her stomach could’ve flown away, as full of butterflies as it was.

-

and when reginald hargreeves came to their doors, offering something none of them could turn down, they all said yes.

**Author's Note:**

> help ive grown attached to these women  
> anyway thanks for reading this extremely self-indulgent mess  
> ive been in a poetry class this semester and i feel like its bled through to my prose writing whoops.


End file.
